An observation on the fleeting ways of fashion

First it was owls. Owls on bags, owls in pictures, owls on T-shirts, owls as key-rings, owls on mugs. Owls, in short, everywhere.

Then the owls diminished and it was the turn of the fox.

The fox faded and it wasn't quite clear what was next.

This season that question has been well and truly answered by the flamingo. Flamingos are everywhere. They are on bolts of fleece, of jersey, of quilting cotton in the fabric shop. They are on place mats and china and tea towels. The windows of Oxford's new John Lewis contain a giant inflatable flamingo pool float, although being John Lewis it is in a tasteful shade of pale pink with a dash of peach rather than actual flamingo colour. Flamingos blared at me from a T-shirt as I picked up the newspaper in Sainsbury's.

But flamingos have now had their most impressive outing yet, in a small print on the shirt worn by Mamoudou Gassama as he received his award for courage from French president Macron after his rescue of a child dangling from a fourth floor balcony*.

There can be no way up from that. We have reached peak flamingo.

*The video for which demonstrates not only that he is quick-thinking and courageous, but that he must be staggeringly fit. Pulling your own bodyweight up like that repeatedly with no real stop for rest is something beyond plenty of pretty fit young men. The fire brigade are lucky to get him.